Starting saving up those empties, folks. According to unnamed sources speaking to Reuters, a self-driving Apple car is pegged for 2024.
“Apple Inc is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology,” said people familiar with the matter.
Despite the setbacks of Apple’s secretive ‘Project Titan’, the report says the company has no made enough progress to build a car for customers, noted unnamed sources.
Also, Apple’s car strategy is said to include “a new battery design that could “radically” reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle’s range, according to a third person who has seen Apple’s battery design.”
As for this battery tech?
As for the car’s battery, Apple plans to use a unique “monocell” design that bulks up the individual cells in the battery and frees up space inside the battery pack by eliminating pouches and modules that hold battery materials, one of the people said.
Sources say Apple is also looking into LFP, or lithium iron phosphate chemistry for batteries, which does not overheat as much when compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries.
“It’s next level,” according to an unnamed source, describing Apple’s battery efforts. “Like the first time you saw the iPhone.”
“If there is one company on the planet that has the resources to do that, it’s probably Apple. But at the same time, it’s not a cellphone,” said a source that worked on Project Titan.
Apple Car Leaked! pic.twitter.com/pjBkOPV9Yp
— Daniel (@ZONEofTECH) December 10, 2020
Sources note Apple would rely on a supply chain partner to build its vehicle. One person said Apple could even just resort of producing self-driving tech for traditional carmakers, instead of its own branded-car.
Production could be pushed to 2025 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, say two unnamed sources. Apple’s car might use multiple LiDAR for scanning, say sources. Some may be made in-house, note the source.
One source said a viable car assembly plant would require 100,000 vehicles produced annually.
The Reuters report follows a previous report from Chinese publication Economic Daily News, citing Apple is expanding its autonomous car efforts.
Building an electric car is no joke. Take a look at the exhaustive efforts it took Tesla to get started, especially with the Model 3 and “production hell”. It’ll be interesting what comes from this.
